PleaseConvinceMe Podcast 158

Reflections on Missions, Evangelism, Epistemology and Evidence

In this podcast, Jim reflects on his recent trip to Manti, Utah to share the Gospel of Grace with members of the LDS Church. What role does evidence and epistemology play in sharing the truth about God? Why does evidence matter, and how does God intend us to use evidence to understand the truth about Him? What are the differences between Christianity and Mormonism that might motivate us to share the Gospel with them in the first place? Jim and Jimmy discuss these issues and more on this edition of the PleaseConvinceMe Podcast.

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PleaseConvinceMe Podcast 158

For Atheists There's No GOOD NEWS

Just for fun, a song called "Atheists Don't Have No Songs"

Christians have their hymns and pages,
Havah Nagilah for the Jews,
Baptists have the rock of ages,
Atheists just sing the blues.

Romantics play claire de lune,
Born agains sing He is risen,
But no one ever wrote a tune,
For godless existentialism.

For Atheists there’s no good news,
They’ll never sing a song of faith.

In their songs they have a rule,
The “he” is always lowercase.
The “he” is always lowercase.

Some folks sing the Bacantada,
Lutherans get Christmas trees,
Atheist songs add up to nada,
But they do have Sundays free.

Some folks sing they sing to heaven,
Gnostics have the books of scrolls,
Numerologists can count to seven,
Atheists have rock and roll.

For atheists there's no good news,
They’ll never sing a song of Faith.

In their songs they have a rule,
The “he” is always lowercase.
The “he” is always lowercase.

Catholics dress up for mass,
and listen to Gregorian chants,
Atheists just take a pass
and watch football in their underpants.

For Atheists There's No GOOD NEWS

Temple Guards

Two events happened the other day while in Utah to talk with Mormons at the Manti Miracle Pageant. The other night as Christians were praying near the Manti Temple, apparently on LDS church property, they were interrupted by the Temple guards and told to leave or they would be forcefully removed. They were told that praying was not allowed on the temple grounds. The property is obviously privately owned by the church but is generally open to the public. The guards were angry and demanding that the Christians leave specifically because they were praying. When asked why they could not pray on the temple grounds, they were answered “that is not allowed here.” The Christians were not being disruptive or disrespectful in any way and were simply praying for the hearts of the Mormon people to know the God and Jesus of the Bible and that LDS would trust fully in the works of Jesus alone for their salvation.

The second event was earlier the same day at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. We know from experience that any type of evangelizing on LDS property is strictly forbidden and simply asking questions about the church can get you forcibly removed. But what about talking about Jesus? We were told in our tour that Jesus was the center of their religion while standing in front of the Christus, the Giant Jesus statue in the Visitors Center. So when some Christians were using surveys about what Jesus taught to talk about Jesus and His teachings at Temple Square, what do you think happened? You guessed it. They were told by the Temple Guards that they were not allowed to talk about Jesus on the LDS church property. Threatening to notify the police, the guards escorted our friend Chip off the Temple Square grounds. But if you know Chip, then you know this is only another opportunity to share with Mormons the hypocrisy of the LDS church. As he walked now with the two guards, he explained that he knew that they were just doing their jobs, but weren’t they doing the very same thing that the temple guards did in the Bible to the apostles who were sharing about Jesus on the temple grounds. The guards were quiet and wide-eyed as his words sunk in.

Temple Guards

PleaseConvinceMe Podcast 157

Is the "Virgin Conception" True (and Can It Be Defended)?

In the latest PleaseConvinceMe Podcast, Jim takes a thorough look at objections to the essential Christian claim that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born to the Virgin Mary. Is the "virgin conception" a ridiculous claim that defies reason and is unsupported by the historical record? Can the claim stand up to the objections of non-believers? Why does the "virgin conception" matter in the first place?

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PleaseConvinceMe Podcast 157

...Paved with Good Intentions

Recently our church has been examining the problems of poverty, addiction and homelessness using The Heritage Foundation's materials for small groups (essentially our small home church) called Seek Social Justice: Transforming Lives in Need. We are a church that loves to serve and so we want to have wisdom in how we serve and get at the root of the problems, not simply applying band aids to a hemorrhaging wound. Again and again, it has been made clear that the real solutions are relational and require investing personally in people to repair brokenness. While well meaning, government programs have been shown to rob those in need of their dignity and responsibility, creating more problems that only break down families, increase crime and burden society more. Here's a great video addressing how NOT to help the poor.

As Christians, let us continue to serve and love the poor, but let us have wisdom in the way we approach the problem of poverty.

...Paved with Good Intentions

Children Need Dads, Societies Need Dads

Can you think of a current television show portraying fathers in a positive light? A father that is strong, smart, loving, involved in his kid’s lives. Pretty difficult to find a single example, huh? The Charles Ingalls and Cliff Huxtable’s no longer exist on television. They’ve been replaced by Homer Simpson.

Today Dr. Jennifer Roback-Morse presented a lecture entitled, “Market Economics and the Family,” at Acton University. She argued that stable and healthy families are culturally essential for free and virtuous societies. Indeed, the family has tremendous implications for economics.

In a free society, people need to govern themselves so they don’t always have to be watched and monitored. Healthy families raise children who eventually become self-governed. Fathers play a huge role in that process.

According to Roback-Morse, the level of a father’s involvement with his children is the strongest predictor of behavioral problems. Fatherless boys are much more prone to violence and aggression. Fatherless girls are much more likely to become sexually active at a younger age and to be victims of sexual abuse. The evidence from social science is overwhelming. Children need their dads.

However, American culture is increasingly hostile to fathers. Beyond negative media portrayals are more serious threats. For example, is has become trendy for women to adopt or use artificial insemination to have children with no father in the picture and no desire for one either. The cultural message is that children are just fine without dads because dads are optional.

But if we buy into this message, all kinds of consequences will follow. Yes, even economic ones. Both mothers and fathers are irreplaceable. But when one or both are missing, the family breaks down and creates huge costs for the state. According to Roback-Morse, the annual cost of unmarried child-rearing to U.S. taxpayers is $112 billion. Thus, it is important for society provide conditions where the family can flourish so that economic freedom can flourish as well. And that seems to be consistent with the plan God has had for families all along.

Children Need Dads, Societies Need Dads

Governance Without Government

Father Robert Sirico opened the Acton University conference in Michigan with a message about human dignity. He described growing up in the Bronx in the 1950’s and 1960’s, where his neighborhood functioned as an interdependent community. People looked out for one another and didn’t expect the government to do everything for them. “Governance without government” is how he described it.

He remembers an elderly neighbor that would sit on her porch and watch the neighborhood boys play baseball, quickly correcting any behavior that she deemed inappropriate. All the boys listened and respected her. Sirico pointed out that times have indeed changed. Today, if ten boys in the Bronx started to get out of hand in the streets, the rebuke of an elderly neighbor would have no effect. Instead, the police would have to be called in.

Today, society seems to have turned from caring about “persons”—your extended family, friends, neighbors—to caring for “people” in general. When you merely care about “people,” you may want help for those in your community that need it but you are removed from any responsibility or obligation and simply expect the government or someone other entity to provide help.

As I reflected on this, I thought of the disappearance of the Good Samaritan in society. News stories tell of someone getting hurt or victimized but instead of individuals stepping in to help, they walk by expecting someone else to take care of it. Father Sirico argued this would never have happened in the 1950’s and 1960’s, even in the Bronx.

Father Sirico is right. Governance without government is a value our society has lost.

Governance Without Government

PleaseConvinceMe Podcast 156

The PleaseConvinceMe Third Anniversary Podcast

In this podcast, Jim celebrates three years of weekly podcasts with a conversation involving his college-aged sons. What are the challenges that are waiting for Christians in the University setting? What challenge does naturalism present to Christian students who are studying the sciences? What are the moral challenges that face young Christians in the secular university setting, and how can they respond? Jim discusses the university life with Jimmy and David as they try to provide a snapshot of what's waiting for our kids.

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PleaseConvinceMe Podcast 156

Jim on STR Radio

Jim filled in for Greg this weekend on Stand to Reason Radio for 3 hours. Jim spoke on "Restaurant Christianity", being a cold case investigator and how he goes about investigating Christianity. Jim also interviewed guest Sean McDowell and talked about Sean's new book, The Unshakeable Truth.

Some of the caller questions were: Is proof for aliens like proof for the Bible? How do you deal with apathy in the church and among youth? The trouble with the 500 witnesses of the resurrection Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians? The problem of proving the Bible is infallible to a non-Christian? Why did so few believe in Jesus if the evidence was so good?

Listen here to the podcast (mp3) and here for the enhanced version (AAC format - chapters and higher-res m4a audio).

Jim on STR Radio

Jim is on Stand to Reason Radio this Sunday

Remember, Jim will be guest-hosting on Stand to Reason radio (KBRT 740AM) this Sunday from 2-5pm PST. In the first hour he will be discussing the ways that the culture is influencing the Church and Jim would love to get your input. The second hour will be open calls so all questions are "in the game". The numbers to call in are (800) 227-5278 and in the Southern California area (714) 754-4150. In the third hour, Jim will be interviewing Sean McDowell about his new book, "The Unshakable Truth".

You can listen live here.

Jim is on Stand to Reason Radio this Sunday

Our Hearts, Our Works

This is a just a short, accurate video on the subject of our "good works", according to the Bible.

Our Hearts, Our Works

Politics is Important

Today is the day those of us who live in California have the opportunity to go to the polls and vote in our party primaries. During this time of endless political commercials, phone calls, and mailers, many wish for the voting to just be done with so we can go back to normal life. Christians can fall into this trap as well, thinking this season is unimportant and insignificant to our daily lives. But Christians need to realize the great importance of political involvement. Much of morality is worked out in society through its laws, government, and politics.

For example, if a society values human life, it will be have policies in place that protect human beings at the different stages of life. Protection of its citizens will be central. If a society does not value all human life equally but instead values a certain race or gender or religion as superior, this will be seen in its laws. Many examples of this exist but a few stand out. Nazi Germany criminalizing a certain race. China valuing men over women to such a degree and massacring its female babies. Iran outlawing proselytizing in the name of any religion beside Islam and putting Christians to death for sharing their faith.

In America we are blessed to live in a republic that grants us so many freedoms others only dream of. One of those freedoms is the right to get involved with the political process and to influence the moral choices we make as a country. Political debates boil down to differences of worldviews. If we remain uninvolved we are allowing those debates to continue without our voice and our influence.

Christians, get involved however you can, even if it’s merely being an informed voter. We can only persuade others to that which is true, good and beautiful by being engaged, not by sitting on the sidelines.

Politics is Important

PleaseConvinceMe Podcast 155

Five Principles to Respond to Claims That Jesus is a Copy-Cat

In this podcast, Jim again examines the claim that Jesus is simply a fictional reiteration of prior copy-cat mythologies and offers five basic principles necessary to examine the claims fairly. Jim then applies these five principles to a common atheist assertion that Psalm 23 is simply a copy of a Hymn to Osiris. In addition, Jim discusses the nature of eyewitness testimony related to the life of Jesus in response to an email from a non-believer.

Check out the podcast homepage for subscription information and archives.

PleaseConvinceMe Podcast 155

The Bible and Homosexual Practice

A great video presentation of the biblical truth about homosexuality by Dr. Michael L. Brown. I appreciate the thorough and compassionate way in which the information is presented. Dr. Brown does an excellent job of addressing the key verses and common responses in The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Fact from Fiction.

The Bible and Homosexual Practice

Residual Brainwashing

I recently wrote that although the LDS church holds the Bible as one of their standard works of scripture, in many ways, the church discounts and distorts the Bible to confuse the truth of the Bible to their faithful members.

One of the issues I've had to deal with, after leaving Mormonism for Christianity, is the residue of LDS brainwashing (any method of controlled systematic indoctrination, esp. one based on repetition or confusion). One example of that, in Mormonism, is that we're taught the meaning of many "scripture" verses before we ever have a chance to read them in context.

The LDS are given several "study helps" in the back of their Standard Works (the 4 books of LDS scripture including their Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine & Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price). The Topical Guide is one of these study aids, and brings together the "scriptures most often used in [LDS] gospel classes and study" on each Mormon topic. The picture below, scanned from my 1986 Standard Works, is the (partial) entry for "Genealogy and Temple Work". (A complete list of verses can be found here.) Take a look:

One thing I hope you noticed is how it reads.

"all Israel were reckoned by genealogy...Let us go to the house of the Lord... to bring out the prisoners from the prison... in mine house... I will give them an everlasting name..."

See, the LDS believe they need to trace genealogies so they can "go to the house of the Lord" (their temples) to do the proxy work necessary "to bring out the prisoners from [spirit] prison", and that it's in their temple ceremonies where they get a new "everlasting name", and so on and so forth. So what we're seeing here is that the Topical Guide entry reads just like the LDS belief.

But DO THE LDS-CHURCH-SELECTED BIBLE VERSES TRULY SUPPORT THE LDS BELIEFS?

To get an idea of the answer to that question, we can start with any verse on the list above, and put it back into context. For brevity sake, I'll do only one on this post -- the Isaiah 42:7 partial verse ("to bring out the prisoners from the prison"):

Isa 42:1-8
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him:
2 he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
8 I am the LORD: that is my name...."

Did you already know the passage is about Jesus? Sure sounds like him, in verses 1-4. To be completely certain, you can go to the New Testament, where Matthew 12:15-21 quotes this part of Isaiah and says it is about Jesus. Continuing on subject, then, with verses 5-8, we see that Jesus would be coming, as promised (still a future event at this point), to open the eyes of the blind (Matt 13:15, Mark 8:18) and release the captives from prison (John 8:32-34, 35-36). Look at what Jesus Himself said in Luke 4:18,19, where he quoted from Isa. 61:1, a verse that says the same things about Jesus, and also says He'll preach good tidings (2 Cor. 5:21) to the meek, bind up the brokenhearted, and proclaim liberty to the captives (John 3:15-17).

So Isaiah 42:7 is the good news, the "gospel" of Jesus the Savior! The immediate context of Isaiah 42 and the greater context of Isaiah shows it, and the New Testament verifies it. What is extremely important to notice is that there is absolutely no mention of temples, nor temple work, nor genealogy.

This is only one of many examples where, pushing Jesus aside to make room for its own doctrine, the LDS Church has taken this piece of verse from its context, placed it together with some other similarly separated pieces of verses, and carefully assembled the pieces into a readable sequence which presents LDS doctrine but bears no resemblance to what the biblical writers intended.

THIS IS BRAIN-WASHING.

Either that, or despite the continuity and simplicity of the gospel message throughout the Bible, there are actually small portions of sentences, strewn throughout the Bible in dissimilar text, hidden so that only the elect elite can find and meaningfully assemble the real truth, which contradicts the overall theme of the Bible.

This is not name-calling. It is my hope that Christians would be warned and that LDS would have their eyes opened to the truth.

Now, there will be many Mormons who will say that the Holy Spirit has verified to them that the Isaiah 42 passage is still about the LDS doing vicarious work for the dead, to bring them out of "spirit prison". Here's my question for you... Is it that you read the Bible on your own, and somehow came to the conclusions that your church did, before hearing it from your church? Or did your church explain it to you first, after which you decided that's what it meant?

Residual Brainwashing

Two Great Arguments

Two great articles I read this week regarding the same sex marriage debate look at two particular responses often given by proponents of same sex marriage. The first is “Domestic partnerships make us second-class citizens. We want marriage, just like everyone else.” Jennifer Roback Morse makes the case that as an adoptive parent, she and her husband felt like second class citizens as well.

The legal requirements [for adopting a child] are in place to protect children who cannot protect themselves. The forms, the fingerprinting, the investigations: These minimal inconveniences really do nothing more than weed out the worst and most obvious of the bad actors among prospective parents. And complying with these rules conveys a tacit but unmistakable message: Giving a child to an unrelated adult is not something to take lightly...

I resolved to let go of the self-pity as a first act of love for a child I hadn’t even seen yet.

What does this have to do with same-sex “marriage”? The plain fact of the matter is that same-sex couples cannot have children together. Any child born to one of them has another biological parent somewhere outside the couple. Parental rights have to be detached from that person. Parental rights have to be attached to the nonbiological parent within the same-sex couple. These are not insignificant steps. The legal system does not, and should not, automatically compress those steps into one by trying to treat same-sex couples the same way as opposite-sex couples.

Once we think about this from the child’s point of view, we can see that it actually makes more sense to have two different systems: biology for the ordinary case of natural parents and adoption for everyone else. Marriage supports the biological principle in the case of opposite-sex couples. The husband of the mother is presumed to be the father of the child because, more than 90% of the time, he is. But changing the “presumption of paternity” to a “presumption of parenthood” actively undermines the biological principle in the case of same-sex couples.

The “presumption of parenthood” separates the child from his or her natural parent in 100% of the cases of same-sex couples.

So, no, I don’t believe that domestic partnerships make same-sex couples into “second-class citizens.” The differences between marriage and the other legal arrangements are tracking substantial real differences, not mere prejudice.

Francis J. Beckwith also shows the irony in arguing that homosexuals are denied marital rights just as blacks were denied interracial marriages at one time in America.

Anti-miscegenation laws, therefore, were attempts to eradicate the legal status of real marriages by injecting a condition—sameness of race—that had no precedent in common law. For in the common law, a necessary condition for a legitimate marriage was male-female complementarity, a condition on which race has no bearing.

It is clear then that the miscegenation/same-sex analogy does not work. For if the purpose of anti-miscegenation laws was racial purity, such a purpose only makes sense if people of different races have the ability by nature to marry each other. And given the fact that such marriages were a common law liberty, the anti-miscegenation laws presuppose this truth. But opponents of same-sex marriage ground their viewpoint in precisely the opposite belief: people of the same gender do not have the ability by nature to marry each other since gender complementarity is a necessary condition for marriage. Supporters of anti-miscegenation laws believed in their cause precisely because they understood that when male and female are joined in matrimony they may beget racially-mixed progeny, and these children, along with their parents, will participate in civil society and influence its cultural trajectory.

In other words, the fact that a man and a woman from different races were biologically and metaphysically capable of marrying each other, building families, and living among the general population is precisely why the race purists wanted to forbid such unions by the force of law. And because this view of marriage and its gender-complementary nature was firmly in place and the only understanding found in common law, the Supreme Court in Loving knew that racial identity was not relevant to what marriage requires of its two opposite-gender members. By injecting race into the equation, anti-miscegenation supporters were very much like contemporary same-sex marriage proponents, for in both cases they introduced a criterion other than male-female complementarity in order to promote the goals of a utopian social movement: race purity or sexual egalitarianism.

This is why, in both cases, the advocates require state coercion to enforce their goals. Without the state’s cooperation and enforcement, there would have been no anti-miscegenation laws and there would be no same-sex marriage. The reason for this, writes libertarian economist Jennifer Roback Morse, is that “marriage between men and women is a pre-political, naturally emerging social institution. Men and women come together to create children, independently of any government.” Hence, this explains its standing as an uncontroversial common law liberty. “By contrast,” Morse goes on to write, “same-sex ‘marriage’ is completely a creation of the state. Same-sex couples cannot have children. Someone must give them a child or at least half the genetic material to create a child. The state must detach the parental rights of the opposite-sex parent and then attach those rights to the second parent of the same-sex couple.”

I am not suggesting, of course, that there are not other arguments for same-sex marriage other than the anti-miscegenation analogy. There are plenty of them, some of which are serious challenges to the common-law understanding of marriage as requiring gender complementarity. What I am saying is that once one understands the purpose of the anti-miscegenation laws and their relation to the common law understanding of marriage, the analogy not only breaks down, but may actually work against the case for same-sex marriage.

Two Great Arguments

PleaseConvinvceMe Podcast 154

Evaluating the Gospels Like Jurors Evaluate Eyewitnesses

In this podcast, Jim examines the instructions currently offered to jurors as they examine eyewitnesses in criminal trials. Can these same instructions be applied to the Gospels as we examine them as eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus? If so, what four principles should we apply to our examination of the Gospels? Do the Gospels "hold up" when compared to contemporary accounts of Jesus from ancient, hostile gentile and Jewish eyewitnesses?

Check out the podcast homepage for subscription information and archives.

PleaseConvinvceMe Podcast 154